Said outgoing artistic director Monica Mason in response to a query, “I have not commissioned any female choreographers to make work for The Royal Ballet during my tenure as Director because, quite simply, I have not come across one that I felt was suitable. Choreography is not a gender issue – it is an issue of talent.”
Tag: 07.17.12
Arrests Have Beijing’s Art World On Edge
“The frothy contemporary-art scene here has lost some of its ebullience in the three and a half months since a German art handler and a Chinese associate were detained on charges that they undervalued imported art to avoid customs duties.”
Ottawa’s Mayor Campaigns For Its Opera Company
“Opera Lyra, like a tragic heroine of the stage, is fighting to overcome the forces that oppose it. The Ottawa company has financial troubles … The company is going on the marketing offensive with a new series of promotional videos, each featuring one of ‘our city’s most recognizable names and faces,’ … The first ‘champion’ is Mayor Jim Watson.”
Sorting Out The Messy Villella Situation At Miami City Ballet
HuffPo provides a guide to the claims and counterclaims being made about Edward Villella’s contentious departure from the company he founded and built.
What It’s Like To Interview Fiona Shaw
“Her words keep hurtling off through exclamations, exhortations, then collapsing in laughter. She revises herself regularly, shouting into my dictaphone: ‘Don’t write that!’ She worries about anything that might come across as pretentious on the page, but in the flesh she is fast and funny.”
Let’s Banish Required Repertoire From Piano Competitions
“Programming is a telling thing, and given free reign [sic], what a pianist chooses to play is often as revealing as the way he/she plays it. … But let us dispense with this traditional notion of the ‘well-rounded’ pianist. … Having a world filled with pianists who can all play the range of repertoire considered ‘standard’ in an inoffensive fashion does nothing to further the musical industry or the art form.”
The Great Philosophers And The Music They Made
“Early on, a conductor rejected one of Nietzsche’s compositions in brutally humiliating terms, asking if he meant it as a joke. But he went on playing and composing anyway, leaving behind about 70 works, including, strange to say, a mass.”
Study: Children Who Study Music In Groups Develop Better Empathy
The study “found that children between 8 and 11 years old involved in different types of group musical activities were more likely to develop empathy than those in control groups where music was not included.”
So What’s It Like Down In The Tate Modern’s Tanks?
“The acoustics of the East Tank (Commission) and the South Tank (Live), two of three underground spaces where the oil that fuelled the power station was once stored, are remarkable. The spaces act as sound boxes … The conversion of the Tanks retains the feel of bunkers, with brutalist concrete columns set at dramatic angles complementing the original industrial architecture. In places there is even a slight whiff of old oil.”
Toni Morrison On Black Literature And The White Gaze
“In American literature, African American male writers justifiably write books about their oppression. Confronting the oppressor who is white male or white woman. It’s race. And the person who defines you under those circumstances is a white mind … African American women never do that. They never write about white men. I couldn’t care less – I didn’t want to spend my energy refuting that gaze.”